by J. S. Morin
Abby covered her mouth with one hand as she fought back a gasp.
She’d always known Alex to be brilliant. She’d never realized the depth of thought behind his every action.
By the age of five, Alex had invented several small devices. He understood electronics at a basic yet intuitive level. Abby recognized the tri-prop helicopter from a display shelf in Dr. Nora’s living room. There was also a page-turning helper for paper books and a simple drone that could play fetch like a dog. Someone had to have helped with the programming, but the designs had an authentic feel of a summer-long project for nine- or ten-year-olds.
The school assignments, though, were the treasure trove. She found a video presentation from when Alex was eight. He stood at the front of a classroom, glancing down at a computer pad occasionally but reciting most of the text from memory.
“The greatest mind of the Human Era was Leonardo da Vinci. While many people remember him as a painter and sculptor, his greatest innovations related to warfare and futurism. In fact, the first robot was designed by da Vinci, even though it was operated by ropes and pulleys. This was just another example of da Vinci’s fascination with mobility, especially as relates to warfare. Project Transhuman demonstrated that robots were, after all, the most mobile and dangerous of all machines of war.”
Abby stopped watching and found another video from the same class year. Alex appeared in a different shirt from before but otherwise looked just the same.
“My analysis of the failure of Benito Mussolini’s regime in pre-invasion Italy revolves around his selection of allies. While ideologically aligned with his allies in Germany, he lacked the unwavering support of his army at home. As a result, when faced with the prospect of engaging in a world-spanning war, he was a tactical liability to the Axis alliance.
“In his place, I would have sought a domestic enemy to vilify and use as a basis for polarizing public opinion. By elevating zealous supporters among the general populace and marginalizing his detractors, Mussolini could have maintained a stronger military effort and…”
Abby couldn’t watch any more of that. The presentation was matter-of-fact, treating political dictatorship as a puzzle to solve. Referencing the assignment file that accompanied the video, the students’ instructions had been: choose a historical figure and demonstrate how their mistakes impacted the course of history. Without access to the other students’ files, Abby could hardly imagine that others had given pointers to a dead despot.
And yet, it was a recurrent theme in Alex’s history classes. Regardless of history’s opinions of a world leader, he found the root of their worst decisions and prescribed remedies. Alex had devised detailed plans for Napoleon to consolidate a permanent dominance over continental Europe, spanning from the English Channel to the Balkans and allowing both England and Russia their sovereignty. He laid out a plan by which Japan could have avoided the war in the Pacific with America and taken control of China. Cheekily flipping the argument on its head, he showed a plan for Mao Zedong to have annexed Japan and leveraged its postwar tech boom to accelerate China’s international rise by fifty years. He had advice for Caesar, Charlemagne, Hannibal, and King George III.
It wasn’t just political theory where Alex held controversial views. His scientific ethics classes showed that he was opposed to the subject matter entirely. While he fulfilled the letter of his assignments, he made cold, logical assessments of the cost of technological progress.
No price was too high.
In one of the few assignments to receive less than exemplary marks, he made arguments that the two sides in the Second World War committed roughly equal scientific atrocities. While Josef Mengele’s works provoked horror, many of his findings were quietly introduced into the mainstream after the war. Meanwhile, J. Robert Oppenheimer opened the gates of hell itself and was awarded a medal for it. Abby fumed at reading a footnote that Mengele’s own great-great granddaughter went on to serve on Project Transhuman.
As if adding Evelyn to the project had been some sort of redemption.
Abby forced herself to muck through the mess. So many glistening, pristine assignments and tests in mathematics, literature, and various sciences flitted by like dandelion fluff on the wind. Those were, by a vast margin, the majority of Alex’s educational record. He’d won prizes and awards at every level along his academic journey. The aberrant views on history and ethics were insect splatters on the skyroamer windshield of his youth.
Just before Alex’s first emancipation hearing, his history assignments took an abrupt shift. No longer glorifying strong men and apologizing for war criminals, he began dissecting government archetypes, pointing out the flaws in each system from monarchy through command-economy socialism. Even the democratic republics held in high esteem at the time of the invasion didn’t come off clean in his assessment.
Alex Truman became an idealist just in time to stand before Eve Fourteen and the Human Welfare Committee, begging to become the youngest emancipated human.
“You slimy little bastard,” Abby muttered to the still-frame face frozen at the end of Dr. Nora’s recording of Alex’s first emancipation hearing. The committee members would all have had access to the same records Abby had just reviewed. None of them could have missed realizing the type of person Alex was at his core. It was amazing he’d made it at all.
Not that there was any provision for a human too deranged to ever be allowed out on his own.
Abby shook her head, staring at the still frame of Alex being denied his emancipation. “How do I let the world know?”
There was the obvious option. She could upload the whole treasure trove of damning personal evidence to the Earthwide. Alex could talk DNA helix straight, but it would be quite a trick refuting his entire educational record.
Abby buried her face in her hands. “If I do that, I’m the bad guy.” Even reading Alex’s private, sealed files was a Privacy Committee violation, and releasing them would put Mom in the awkward position of having to bring Abby up on charges of violating pre-emancipation rights.
But it wasn’t Abby’s reputation at stake here.
Mom could come down on her like an extinction-level meteor strike when this was all over. It wouldn’t be for show, either. Eve Fourteen had built a reputation on fierce protection of the humans under her care. Abby would be lucky to escape a hearing with continued access to the Earthwide.
“Might be worth it,” Abby muttered. She envisioned a world if one were to take Alex Truman at his word. Humans breeding like monkeys. Unfettered science. Opening up the Privacy Committee and Scientific Ethics Committee files on crimes against humans. Tribunals for offenses long since forgotten. Involuntary deactivations. New education standards with all-human faculties. The takeover of human genetic engineering by humans.
And a human government.
Abby had studied her share of history as well. It was a ripe orchard of ideas to respin into entertainment. She’d seen the good and bad of mankind’s greatest civilizations, and the robots had done better by humanity than any of them.
Fighting off the temptation to just blast Alex Truman’s bio to the entire world, she got on her computer and contacted Dr. Nora. She’d been the one to open Pandora’s box. She was going to help Abby deal with the contents.
Chapter Fifty-Two
On a bright, sunny morning just outside the historic city of Boston, Alex Truman stood before the loudest crowd he’d ever addressed. With the election drawing nearer, anticipation had become a fever plague among humanity. The vulgar public spectacle of begging for approval from the masses had grown so virulent that even robots were catching it. No less than a quarter of the crowd was robotic, and that was too many for it to merely be the thirty-three unmixed robots coming out in force to view humanity’s first true leader.
Alex smiled and waved as he came onto the makeshift stage—the steps of the Project Transhuman building. Few places from the Human Era had been left intact. Most were ancient even before the invasion, cultu
ral touchstones of interest to the entire species, places that appeared on postcards and in establishing shots of major movies.
The Project Transhuman building was the youngest of the heritage sites preserved and restored by Charlie7’s early robots. It mattered as much to them as the pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China. It was the birthplace of the Second Human Era.
“Welcome, everyone,” Alex said, his voice borne aloft on the wings of spread-point acoustic speakers that targeted the crowd and made it sound like he was standing arm’s length from each and every one of them. “I can tell how excited all of you are. We are on the verge of a glorious new day.”
Unbridled enthusiasm. Calm assurance. Full ease.
Ease was trouble to fake. At the best of times, it was an alien sensation, setting aside focus to allow emotion to carry thought without help. It conflicted with the tense concentration where Alex felt most at home. Instead of true relaxation, he’d studied video of what relaxation looked like and mimicked it as best he could with muscles taut and tendons strung like piano wire.
“Three days,” Alex said.
Wait for cheering to subside. Smile. Absorb adulation.
“In three days, your voices will be heard. I want to assure everyone that there will be no risk of tampering or subterfuge in the process. One of my advisers came up with a solution so foolproof, so simple in its execution, that it’s amazing none of the governments of the Human Era ever tried it. On November 7th a publicly accessible file will open on the Earthwide. Each voter will find their name and a field editable by them alone where they can choose their candidate. We’ll leave the file open until a decisive number of voters are accounted for and everyone has had ample opportunity to ensure that no one else had errantly marked a vote on their behalf.”
There were a few jeers from the crowd amid the cheers.
Malcontents. Contrarians. Saboteurs.
True democracy wasn’t held in secret. He’d anticipated balking by historically minded voters who might believe otherwise.
“Oh, I hear the naysayers,” Alex said with a sly smile, wagging a finger at the crowd. “But I think modern humans are above holding grudges over voting results. No one who votes against me will have to worry that I’ll bear him any ill will. There won’t be any cronyism or patronage under my watchful eye.”
The fall colors had taken hold of the foliage. There was a chill in the air. Let the obstinate suckers in the audience feel that chill in his words.
One of the best lessons Alex Truman had taken from historical politics was the notion that words could exist separate from context. Assurances. Doubts. Contrast. He could deny until the sun set on the speech, but some portion of the crowd would always hold nagging worries that Alex would hold grudges, that there would be places in his government for those who supported him, that the powers that be wanted to rig the election for Eve.
Support me.
Support me.
Every hint and innuendo was crafted to garner support by the millimeter. A noose tightened like a ratchet around Abby’s campaign to keep her mother in power.
Instead of leaning on his psychological levers, Alex loosened his grip and switched to an inspirational mode. The human mind rebelled instinctively against coercion, and Alex knew he was treading close to the edge of that precipice. “Together, we are stronger than the robots imagine. They think we need them to survive. That was once true. But we are back. Human feet trod upon every corner of the Earth once more. Our numbers will only grow. Our flowers will blossom. It’s time to come to terms on the partnership between man and machine.
“I see you out there. Some of you remember this building behind me intimately. The bodies you wear now are the vessels that allowed you to survive the apocalypse when all others succumbed. You are the ones to whom we owe everything.” Alex bowed his head. From the edge of his vision, he saw that many of the humans in the audience did likewise. Those closest to the original thirty-three robots in the crowd directed their gratitude personally to the Project Transhuman scientists on site.
Alex lifted his gaze, and his followers in the crowd did likewise. Even those with no political affiliation or loyalty to Alex had shown respect to the original robots.
Build on that. Reinforce. Bond the crowd to one another.
“There was an old phrase from the age of wars among our own kind. The idea of giving your last breath for your people. You, who wear mechanical bodies instead of flesh, have given that breath and yet are here to receive your justly deserved accolades. Under my administration, I intend to see that robots with human minds receive all the rights and privileges as biological humans.”
Alex raised his arms. “There will come a time.”
Pause for effect.
“There will come a time, when age overtakes us. One day, genetics may allow us to win the race against human life expectancy, but until that day, I suspect that many will, at the end of our lives, trudge with reluctant duty to Kanto where we will shift to a life in bodies just like theirs.” He swept a hand toward a knot of robots in the crowd, most of whom were curious mixes just attending for the spectacle and historical potential. Alex considered being used as a prop a fair trade for the free entertainment.
The crowd murmured, but Alex continued on. “The human mind is paramount. The human mind, in the end, is all that matters in the universe. We are the greatest generation ever, because we are the firstborn children of science. It is our obligation not only to use our incredible mental capacity to better our species but to preserve that knowledge and intellect for all time. We will craft our own afterlife. We will construct our own heaven.”
The murmurs in the crowd grew. A buzz in Alex’s earpiece warned him that live biometric polling of the audience showed disapproval for the metaphoric apostasy.
Shift topics. Pivot. Genetics.
“We are whatever we make of ourselves. This world is our inheritance, our legacy. It is time for our emancipation as a species. To take custody of our birthright. To thank the robots who tended it in our prolonged absence and ask that they step aside with grace and humility before the one true species on Earth.”
A voice buzzed in Alex’s ear. “Cut it short,” Wendy warned.
Alex tried to both grit his teeth in annoyance and smile in triumph at once. She knew better than to interrupt. Quick signals only. There was a system in place. Protocols. Didn’t she know that?
“Before, when we—”
“I said cut it short,” Wendy snapped. “Every word you utter is reducing your odds of winning. Get off that stage immediately.”
The crowd grew restless during Alex’s awkward pause. Something urgent in Wendy’s voice inclined him to heed her warning this time. If there was a ruse or prank at play here, she’d answer for it. But that didn’t sound like the Wendy he knew.
Improvise. Exit. Find out what’s going on.
“Before, when we talked of our future, it was a matter of asking permission,” Alex said, weaving the threads of his prior narrative arc directly into his ending. “In three days, we set the terms of our ascension. Thank you, everyone, and remember to vote for Alex Truman, the first president of the Second Human Era.”
He waved to the crowd as he headed into the Project Transhuman building, where his campaign staff had set up a temporary outpost. Someone was going to explain why he was summoned off stage, and there was going to be a very good reason. Otherwise, someone was going to be looking for a position as assistant janitorial drone programmer in the new administration.
Chapter Fifty-Three
In what had once been the break room for the Project Transhuman staff, twenty-first century decor met thirty-second century technology. The Truman campaign had set up video monitors showing the crowd on a grid of split-screen images. A trio of panels that showed the stage from varying angles showed the vacant spot that Alex had stalked just moments earlier.
All around the room, eyes turned in Alex’s direction upon his arrival.
“What
?” he snapped. “I was practically giving a pre-victory speech out there. Aside from being squeamish about science replacing religion, the rest of the points were knocking down any last barriers to a landslide.”
“Only for the live audience,” Irene said grimly.
Alex scanned his lieutenants more carefully. Initially, he’d been overcome by his anger at being summoned off stage. Now, he saw expressions that concerned him. Sternness in place of the usual levity that followed his speeches. Uncertainty among his most steadfast supporters. “Spit it out! What’s gone wrong?”
Irene tapped her portable, and the main screen dissolved from an insectile multi-lens overview of the rally into a single camera view focused on Alex.
There was no timestamp, but Alex judged that this was the beginning of the speech.
The words thundered forth as Irene activated the playback. Alex recognized the familiar strangeness of his own voice outside the confines of his head. Behind him, the stoic, blank concrete facade of the Project Transhuman headquarters loomed, adding gravitas to the moment.
Objectively, it was a brilliant speech. It hit all the notes from his script like a row of nails driven neatly into a plank. But then something went wrong. Images appeared on the face of the building.
Alex turned his ire on Gerry, who slunk in from the back with his recording equipment as the playback started. “What’s the matter with you? How could you not notice this?” He stretched out both hands, bracketing the screen in case the oblivious videographer were, in fact, blind.
